The Undeserving

First off, I have a confession to make. When I chose this topic, I thought I had it all figured out. I was going to write a really nice article about how, as Christians, we are called to love our neighbours as we love ourselves. This includes everyone, even the “uncool” people or the “annoying” people. I was going to tell you how important it is to respect and love everyone, even if they aren’t so easy to deal with. Which is all important, but it would seem that this wasn’t exactly what God had in mind for me to do.

After a healthy dose of “life happens” and a few slices of humble pie, I have something very different to say. Being a Christian is not the cool opinion in this world, and more than this, we shouldn’t be considering ourselves as being “cool” for being in church. Because we are not cool. We are sinful, horrible humans who are only allowed in church because of the mercy of the God we turned our backs on.

Why am I telling you this? Because, guys, I realized once again that I don’t have this life figured out. I don’t know what I’m doing. And I’m definitely not doing what I know I should be doing. Among those things, I am not loving my neighbour as myself. But I’m not loving myself very much either. I’ve thought that I was “cool” and that I have every right to be where I am. But I don’t. I am only here because Jesus has paid for it all, even my superior attitude and thoughts. I am not better than the people who I consider to be uncool or annoying or difficult. I’m not better for being made to realize this either. I might be referring to myself right now, but this applies to all of us. None of us are “cool” enough or worthy of God or worthy of being called a Christian.

I am not impressed with myself. The person staring back at me when I look in the mirror makes me cringe, because I know of every flaw, and I don’t like it. I keep failing as a Christian; I really don’t know what I’m doing. And I could end this article here. These last few days I haven’t felt like I should go any further than this sentence.

But it can’t stop here. Because God didn’t stop here. He didn’t make us realize our sin to forever be crushed under its burden. It is only the beginning. You and I are always going to fail, but the blood of Christ is always going to redeem us. No matter how far we have fallen. To me, this is a relief; the enormous burden of guilt, shame, and confusion that I have been dragging with me is being lifted. My life may not have felt precious to me, but it is precious to God. You may be going through the same thing that I have been going through; if so, then I want you to realize that your life is precious, even if you are failing, even if you’re the annoying one right now. Even if you have just realized that you don’t know what you are doing. Even if you have once again failed. To God, you were valuable enough to die for, despite all of these things. He never meant for you to earn this, because none of us can.

God values your life, and this means that you should value it too. This also means that you should value the lives of others. Show them God’s amazing gift through how you treat them, the gift that none of us deserves.